Posts Tagged ‘December Records

I had never heard of Tamiko Jones when I picked up this record for nothing—I bought solely on the cover, a full size headshot of her, equal parts odd and beautiful, with painted on eyebrows and pale lipstick—kind of a hunting photo, really, with such a limited depth of field that her dark eyes are barely in focus, while her ears are part of the background blur. The stark red letters: “Tamiko” are in a kind of “Exotica” font that led me to believe this record might be in that vein, but it’s not at all—it’s kind of pop jazz vocalist stuff—pretty straightforward, but really nice, and to me has kind of an odd edge that I can’t really place. Sometimes she sounds a little like—it almost came to me—but I lost it. If we’re to believe Internet, she was born in Kyle, West Virginia and raised in Detroit, so it’s safe to assume she must have visited the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, during it’s prime years. It also says she is part Japanese, part British, and part Cherokee. The album has virtually no credits, but some is arranged by Jimmy Wisner, and some by Pete Dino. There is some standard sounding pop orchestra, and then some that sounds pretty otherworldly, with haunting vibes, some pretty prominent flute, and… do I hear a harp? There are some bossa nova songs, probably my favorites here. And a nice version of “You Only Live Twice,” my favorite Bond song (not in part because it makes no sense). A Bacharach/David number, which I always like. Really, I’m pretty captivated by this record, to the extent that I don’t want to ruin the spell by listening to it too many times right now—I know I can come back to it and have the same kind of curious reaction to it—at least I hope so. So I might write about it again.